News

When holidays attack

FIVE YEARS ago this week, my family embarked on a long-dreamt-of holiday in Vermont. Two hours into the flight to Boston, all hell broke loose at the rear of the plane when a male passenger collapsed outside the toilet. Two doctors came forward to treat the man, who, it transpired, was dying due to a burst condom of drugs in his stomach.

It turned out that the man had eight travelling companions, who were Russian — surprisingly, they had warrant cards establishing that they were officers in Georgia’s state police. One of the men tried to use a cellphone, which was taken from him, at which time the plane turned back to the UK. There, the men were removed from the plane.

Two hours later, we flew back towards Boston, arriving, stranded, in the middle of the night, with more than 200 miles of driving to Vermont, in a raging thunderstorm.